791: LLRT The Serverless Runtime w/ Richard Davison

Scott and Wes chat with Richard Davison from AWS about LLRT, a new runtime tailored specifically for Lambda. They dive into the benefits of using LLRT, challenges with JavaScript in serverless, and why Rust was chosen for its development. Show Notes • 00:00 • Welcome to Syntax! • 01:07 • Who is Richard Davison? • 05:11 • What is LLRT and what’s the motivation for building it? • 08:25 • AWS Lambda example. • 11:20 • What makes LLRT specifically tailored to Lambda? • 14:55 • Brought to you by Sentry.io • . • 15:22 • Node.js in Lambda • . • 16:00 • What are some challenges that people have with JavaScript in serverless? • 17:20 • Lambda memory configuration. • 19:23 • Managing cost of compute. • 21:29 • Simpler and faster than Node, Bun, Dino, but not a replacement. • 22:31 • The benchmarks. • 27:00 • Quick.js, the main reason for the performance gains. • Fabrice Bellard QuickJS • . • • 28:03 • The Quick.js engine. • 30:35 • What was the reason behind creating Quick.js? • 33:46 • What made you pick Rust for LLRT? • 36:34 • Abstractions and the value of speed. • 39:08 • The JIT Compiler • . • 42:38 • Compile cache. • 43:27 • De-optimizations. • 44:59 • Node.js Compat, what to use and avoid with LLRT. • GitHub AWS Labs Compatibility Chart • . • • 47:52 • Will you target with WinterCG • spec? • 50:22 • Streams API • . • 52:06 • What about WebSockets? • 53:10 • Is this going to be promoted from a labs project? • 54:49 • Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs. Sick Picks • Richard: QuickJS Engine • , JSLinux • . Shameless Plugs • Richard: Javascript Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads